These Rates Would Shock a Loan Shark

Just in time for Thanksgiving last year, a credit card offer arrived in the mail. The (introductory) rate was 2 percent. Malcolm S. jumped. A student at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, Malcolm was looking after the affairs of a grandfather in a nursing home.

Soon, he had run up $2,000 in charges. Even sooner, the 2 percent rate vanished.

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Daniel Indiviglio was an associate editor at The Atlantic from 2009 through 2011. He is now the Washington, D.C.-based columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. He is also a 2011 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow through the Phillips Foundation.